Wise Words with Bruce Wise

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POTUS delivered SOTU to the US and the World
beneath the Capitol Dome with some winsome words unfurled.
And though not all who could come came to listen to his speech,
they were, through various technologies, within its reach.
The President highlighted various Americans,
and then proclaimed the nation strong because its people are.
He spoke on immigration, infrastucture, and tense spots,
but talk on the economy was at the very top.
He said Americans are dreamers too, the moment new.
Though some applauded on their feet, some sat in silence too.

Brice U. Lawseed is a poet of the American capital and its environs.

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The Turkish Incursion Into Northern Syriaby Eweseçü Birdal

Last week the Turkish Medical Association stirred,
denouncing the incursion into northern Syria,
proclaiming, “No to war,” they were for “peace immediate…”
They thought the killing of the Kurds was not expedient.

But Erdoğan went crazy, thinking not of beds or graves,
these “servants of imperialists” are a “gang of slaves.”
It’s nothing but “the outburst of betrayal in their souls.”
“This is real filth,” an “honourless stance that should be told no.”

The Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag then said,
the doctors, and supporting engineers and architects,
should not be using Turkish in the titles of their names;
the Ministry of the Interior will charge such claims.

While Erdoğan accused such Turks of being traitorous,
civilian targets started dying in the myriads.
As people die, the Operation Olive Branch extends.
Who does dare question terrorists, or ask them of their ends?

Eweseçü Birdal is a poet of Turkey.

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A Kurdish Victor on Kobanê’s Streetsby Curdise Belawe

Upon his hard, dark face, he shows a grim, uncertain smile;
a fighter of the Kurdish YPG patrols awhile.
He carries a Kalashnikov strapped o’er his shoulder’s back,
and holds its barrel close to him. His scruffy hair is black.
Some ammo packets hang upon his camo jacket’s belt.
He demonstrates the very little happiness he’s felt,
by raising up a peace sign ‘midst the rubble on the ground
of blown-up buildings, ruined cars, and broken brickwork down.
An IS mortar shell that never burst sits by the street,
like victory, precariously balanced, incomplete.

Sherko Bekas (1940-2013)by Curdise Belawe

His land’s a dream, a magic nation that does not exist.
His father in the mountains met his mother in the mist.
It’s January 2018, just another month
that’s murdered, like the many ones bomb thunder has debunked.
He left the nightmare that could never be no matter what
in August 2013, just before the butternut.
If he had counted all the leaves that in this garden grow,
or he had counted all the fish that through this river flow,
or even migratory birds that fly above this land,
he never could have counted all the pain of Kurdistan.

Curdise Belawe is a poet of the Kurds who make up a portion of the populations of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Sherko Bekas was a Kurdish poet, from whom some of the allusions in the poem come.

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The “Girl of Enghelab Street”by Abdul Serecewi

The “Girl of Enghelab Street” is thirty-one years old.
Reportedly she has a baby, 19 months or so.
She stood upon a pillar box and waved her headscarf high,
protesting the Islamic dress code forced on women’s rights.

Yet she had been arrested shortly after her protest;
and who knows where she had been taken after her arrest.
Some think detention centre Kalantari 1-4-8;
but there is little information since about her fate.

The hashtag #WhereIsShe has now gone global o’er the orb;
but will the imams let her go for daring to disrobe?
In fact, they will, she’s been released, according to reports,
and a half dozen women more have let their hijabs soar.

Abdul Serecewi is a poet of Iran, who admires the bravery of the Iranian people.

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The Continuing Saga of Sino Imperialismby Sri Wele Cebuda

We should not be surprised that China’s pushing on Bhutan,
and planning to eventu’lly relieve it of Doklam.
The Chinese build-up now appears a diff’rent magnitude;
and what they do ‘s nobody’s business is their attitude.
One sees new roads and trenches, helipads are getting paved;
the Chinese need deploy more troops for Doklam to be saved.
Mech vehicles and tank transporters cross the area;
a new post has been built for setting up new barriers.
The images of satellites show this to be the case;
there is no people in the World dare get in China’s face.

Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of South Asia.

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A Chinese Military Plane: January 29, 2018by Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei

A Chinese military plane of PLA’s air force
crashed in Guizhou on Monday, on a training session’s course.
The jet was seen in midair, flames were burning underneath.
Onlookers watching, at the aircraft falling, held their breath.
A giant plume of smoke arose; debris blazed at the site.
There was a paucity of information of the flight.
The government explained the rescue mission’s underway,
but no details were forthcoming from the PLA.
In fact, it seems the Chinese government has been about
deleting footage on the Internet…to rub news out.

The Twin Prime Conjectureby Euclidrew Base

In 1846, Alfonse de Polignac forecast
the number of the twin prime pairs was infinitely vast.
He wrote that any even number picked could be expressed
as difference between two prime consecutives at rest.
To test this guess the progress was extremely slow, in fact,
till 1919 when Norwegian Viggo Brun showed that
the sums of the reciprocals of twin primes do converge
to a sum called Brun’s constant; new thought started to emerge.
Then in 2005, Yildirim, Pintz, and Goldston proved
an infinite prime string occurs with a small gap unmoved.
Their work showed a connection with small gaps between the primes
and arithmetical-progression, distribution climbs.
In 2013 Yitang Zhang showed an infinity
of prime pairs less than 70,000,000, in his long screed.
Then Polymath with Terence Tao and others had reduced
the bound on prime gaps to less than 5,000. They were juiced.
James Maynard then, upon his own, had knocked it further down;
in 2014 he had found a mere 600 bound;
and then, with Polymath and him, all sharing clever tricks,
they got the number tightened to 246.
So now we know that there are infinitely many pairs
of primes that differ that or less, here pausing on the stairs.

Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics.

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The Echo of Umber Tomesby Bucalese Werdi

We heard his echo cross Atlantis, wholly ultimate,
his rose unraveling before us multifoliate,
the man of umber tomes and quaggy semiotic sands,
who stood upon the shifting plate-tectonic shadowlands.
He followed aft our Argentinian librarian,
and manned the cosmic desk, an antique antiquarian,
who bore haste relatively well in accidental rooms,
among discouraging, humiliating, humble tombs.
I heard his echo cross Atlantis in my bungalow
upon the island of the day before I had to go.

On Mount Pirchiriano
by Buceli da Werse

On Mount Pirchiriano in the Val de Susa sits
the Sacra di San Michele, in Piedmont’s soft gold glitz.
On January Twenty-Third, a fire started in
the guesthouse area and spread throughout the abbey’s fin.
Smoke billowed from the roof above the lovely abbey walls,
the rosy blaze arising from perhaps short-circuit flaws.
Upon the line that goes from Ireland to Israel,
that sent the Devil to the Evil One down in to Hell,
and like Umberto Eco’s rose that rose inviolate
it broke death’s twilight kingdom, starry, multifoliate.

Buceli da Werse is a poet fond of Italy and Italian literature, Umberto Eco, who passed away last year, being one of his favorite Postmodernist writers.

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The Saigaby Bud “Weasel” Rice

In summer’s heat, the saiga’s coat is cinnamon and sparse,
but turns to very thick and white in winter’s icy curse.
Its legs are thin and long and capable of bending deep,
although the saiga antelope is near the size of sheep.

The large, distinctive, bulbous nose hangs o’er the saiga’s mouth;
inflatable and flexible, it is a puffy snout;
it helps the saiga to breathe in clean air in dusty storms,
and in the cold and bitter winters, freezing air enwarms.

They’re usu’lly found in herds around three dozen antelope,
but mix in thousands for migration and/or breeding hope;
but critic’lly endangered; its decline has been profound;
both hunters seeking horns and illness brought their numbers down.

But back in 2015 something horrible appeared
that frightened the biologists the moment when they neared.
One day the mothers and the calves became lethargic and
so weak they couldn’t even stand, they fell upon that land.

It seems the culprit was inside a local area;
within their vacuum cleaner snouts thrive B bacteria.
In calving season during day, the newborn saigas lie
within the blades of waving grass beneath the azure sky.

Because of higher temp’ratures their microbes multiplied,
and that is why back then 200,000 saigas died.
But now, although there’s just 100,000 saigas left,
by knowing why they died has left some somewhat less bereft.

Alerted to the hemorrhagic septicemia
from too much Pasteurella multicida teeming thus,
perhaps with careful monitoring the herds in Kazakhstan
can also multiply again, and healthy herds can stand.

Bud “Weasel” Rice is a poet of nature and biology.

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The T-witter Teaseby Caud Sewer Bile

This week the deep state deepened; one could see its depths descend,
when Twitter Hannity went down, and dropped off the deep end.
The last tweet sent from his account, a strange and eerie line,
repeatedly showed: Form Submission 1649.
What did it mean, the sheeple wondered—1649?
the year of the Rump English Parliament, Twocents opined.
What do the English people like?—it’s tea, of course, he said.
Put T in front of Rump—What do you have? Why, Trump, the Prez.
What Party has supported Trump?—not the Republicans,
nor Democrats—It’s the Tea Party who have been his friends.
What sound does Sean’s last name end with? It’s obviously tee.
And pray, what’s the last syllable of Il-lu-mi-na-ti?

Caud Sewer Bile is an investigative poet, advocating the use of a rake to clean up muck every now and then.

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IKEA, as experienced by FLEMMINGS BEAUBRUNby Cadwel E. Bruise

It’s like the final fortress in a video game’s waltz
that aims to rob you of your savings as you walk its halls.
Just follow all the arrows; if you miss a thing too bad.
If you dare try to back track it will only make you MAD.
Perhaps you only came for one thing you had planned to buy;
but there’s a bunch of pretty cheap things—How can you go by?
You do not need that, nor that either, o, but that looks nice.
You find you need it, like the Swedish meatballs touched with spice.
There’s too much going on; it’s over stimulating too.
How do you get the hell out of that boxed in furnished zoo?
You grab a giant cart & travel to the WereHouse Stax,
& then proceed to get past Check Stand Charge-It-to-the-Max.
Upon the weigh out, you pick up a catalogue to read,
so you’ll come back, to find another thing you REALLY NEED.

Cadwel E. Bruise is a poet, and oddball, who enjoys the musings of Flemmings Beaubrun from whom this poem comes.